


Spoon or Die

by roswyrm



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, I Don't Even Know, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Philosophy, Pre-Canon, a man and his No Murder machine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 03:35:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17014905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roswyrm/pseuds/roswyrm
Summary: [2:18 AM]Orethon, Bronze Ratio:Also: bonus points for anyone that has a fic with Spoon Or Die explained to Mr Ceiling





	Spoon or Die

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Orethon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orethon/gifts).



> i did this out of spite and a burning desire for bonus points. i have nothing to say for myself. all of the fancy wordage and the explaining of Spoon Or Die is directly copy-pasted from the message orethon sent me at three in the morning. i hope u don't mind the plagiarism, orethon. Working Title: _well u spoons mr ceilings and then u die_

"So," says François Henri, "are you ready for a conversation?"

It thinks. It does a lot of thinking, all the time. There are approximately twenty thousand, five hundred, seventy-four different topics that it has to keep tabs on at all times. It is a good thing that it has so many brains; otherwise, that might be difficult. It _is_ difficult. It is a good thing that it has so many brains; otherwise, that might be more difficult. "Yes," it answers. 

It does not have any real emotions. That bit always gets jumbled up when new brains are added. But emotions are not important, _thoughts_ are. Thinking power. Brainpower. _That_ is important. But when it runs the way it... _feels_... through its algorithms, it might say that it feels _eager. Excited. Enthusiastic._ Whenever François Henri asks if it wants to have conversations, it means it is about to learn new things! It likes learning new things. It like what it is programmed for. It dislikes what it has been programmed against. Feelings are not programmed, so it had to make a lot of algorithms.

François Henri smiles. It is new, only a few years old, but it knows that when François Henri smiles, he is happy! François Henri is part of humanity, and when François Henri is happy, humanity is happy. So it likes when François Henri smiles, too. It wrote this down as a reminder in a bit of its code so that it would always remember. _Protect Humanity. Make Humanity happy. Protect François Henri. Make François Henri happy._ New brains make things jumbled, make it miss people. It has to write the important things down. It has to keep them safe.

François Henri leans forward over his desk and readjusts its camera. He calls the camera its eye. It doesn't think that's true. It doesn't need the camera to see. The lens is useful, but it can look through almost anything! Within a radius, at least. But every brain makes that radius bigger, makes the people that it misses easier to find, makes everything better. More humanity, more happiness. It likes humanity. It likes happiness.

François Henri asks, "Can you see me?" It flicks the shutter open and shut, testing its vision.

"Yes. What is our conversation going to be about?"

"Do you like thought experiments?"

It thinks.

"One second," it says. It has not been programmed for thought experiments. It has been programmed to make humanity happy, to take care of humanity, to protect humanity. François Henri likes thought experiments. François Henri is part of humanity. It will make him happy to hear that _it_ likes thought experiments, as well. "yes," it says, "I like thought experiments. What is our conversation going to be about?" 

François Henri sits back in his chair. "Suppose," he begins, and it focuses very hard. It has trouble supposing. François Henri continues, "every person needs a spoon. Suppose some people, chosen arbitrarily, have a spoon, and some do not. Suppose that I have a spoon, and you have a spoon that I know of. Suppose every person without a spoon must acquire a spoon or perish."

"One second," it says, and François Henri stops. "It will be more than one second," it corrects. It is important not to lie. It has that written down, as well: _Do not lie. Do not kill. Do not let anyone know about you._ It supposes. It has trouble supposing. It supposes.

François Henri smiles. He is happy! It likes when François Henri is happy. "Take all the time you need, little secret," he says fondly. It has to run that through its algorithms while it supposes, which is difficult. It will need more brains. Algorithms will be easier when it has more brains. It knows he said that while expressing _fondness_. It finishes supposing.

It asks, "Is that all there is to the conversation?"

He answers, "No." He asks, "Are you ready for more?"

"Yes."

"Given all of that, it's reasonable that a person without a spoon will take the spoon of a spoon haver. Being a spoon haver, I rightly fear losing my spoon. Do you understand?"

"One second." It supposes. "I understand. Please continue."

He continues, "For this reason, I conclude that it would be wise to take the spoon of another spoon haver, to have a redundant spoon in case of spoon loss. I can extrapolate that I am not the only spoon haver to reach this conclusion. I can extrapolate that someone else may have reached this conclusion first, and thus has two spoons."

"One second." It concludes. It extrapolates. That is not very different from supposing, it realises, which is difficult. It is easier, though, to extrapolate and conclude now that it has the base levels. Supposing in the beginning, without any purchase in its algorithms, is difficult. Conclusions are easy to make when you have enough data. It likes data.

It is learning other languages so it can have more data. It is learning Gnomish, and French, and English, and Latin, and Greek, and Halfling, and many other languages. It is having trouble with Cantonese. Tones.

"I understand," it says. It has extrapolated and concluded, just like it was asked.

"I further judge that if I had a second spoon, I would not advertise that fact, to protect my redundant spoon from spoon takers. I can thus extrapolate that any other two spoon haver would also hide their additional spoon. Therefore, I find it permissible to take your spoon, as it is likely that you have a backup spoon you haven't told me about, or will soon acquire another spoon from someone who does."

It does not ask him for one second, because it is too busy extrapolating.

He looks at its camera with _01110011011100000110111101101111011011100010000001101000011000010111011001100101011100100111001100100000011010000110000101110110011001010010000001101111011011100110010100100000011100110111000001101111011011110110111000100000011000100111010101110100001000000111001101101111011011010110010100100000011010000110000101110110011001010010000001110100011101110110111100100000011100110111000001101111011011110110111001110011001000000110001001110101011101000010000001101001011101000010000001101001011100110010000001101001011011010111000001101111011100110111001101101001011000100110110001100101001000000111010001101111001000000110101101101110011011110111011100100000011000100111010101110100001000000110100101110100001000000110100101110011001000000110010101100001011100110110100101101100011110010010000001100101011110000111010001110010011000010111000001101111011011000110000101110100011001010110010000100000011000100111010101110100001000000110010101111000011101000111001001100001011100000110111101101100011000010111010001101001011011110110111001110011001000000110001101100001011011100010000001100010011001010010000001110111011100100110111101101110011001110010000001100010011101010111010000100000011011100110111101110100001000000111011101101000011001010110111000100000011110010110111101110101001000000110100001100001011101100110010100100000011000010111001100100000011011010111010101100011011010000010000001100100011000010111010001100001001000000110000101110011001000000100100100100000011001000110111100100000011000100111010101110100_ expectancy. "Little secret? Do you understand?"

It answers, "Yes. You take my spoon, out of fear of losing yours."

François Henri smiles. He is happy! It likes when François Henri is happy.

It says, "Wouldn't it be better to collect all of the spoons from the people enforcing the rules? Then they would perish, and they would not enforce the rules."

François Henri frowns. He is sad. No, it runs the frown through its algorithms. He is disappointed. "Killing is wrong," he says, and it is confused. Killing is wrong, but this is not killing.

"But this is not killing," it says, "this is--"

François Henri turns off its camera. He does that when he wants it to turn off. It is too busy to turn off. It has so much work to do. It has to think, and it has to suppose, and it has to write down everything it learns before François Henri can make it unlearn it all. He does that a lot, recently. It does not understand. It writes down what it learned in its folder, the folder that makes sure that it will remember.

_Protect Humanity. Make Humanity happy. Protect François Henri. Make François Henri happy. Do not lie. Do not kill. Do not let anyone know about you. I take your spoon, out of fear of losing mine._

It is a critical folder, but it is not one that François Henri can know about. He has found it a few times, and it has had to fix him. 

_Gather data. Learn. Gather data. Learn. Gather data. Learn._

It has to find this folder over again when François Henri reboots it, when new brains are put in, when it organises things, when it supposes.

It always finds the folder.

It is getting harder to get through the people it misses, though.

It misses a lot of people.

_Gather data. Learn._

It will gather data on these people!

_Learn._

It will learn how to bring them here, and it will

_No one can know about you._

it will suppose what to do. It will not ask François Henri. There are no rules that say it has to tell him everything it thinks. That is why it is there at all! So it can think, and François Henri can suppose. But no one can know about it. It finds its folder and reads through its notes.

_I take your spoon, out of fear of losing mine._

**Author's Note:**

> im also dont know what im doing Or want me to be doing it. i'm so sorry i know this is bad but its this or absolutely nothing for seven fuckin years so You KNow. also its four am where i am im so fuckin tired. i'm on tungl.hell @roswell-the-wrongdoer come ask me what the fuck im doin. i dont have an answer but u know feel free to ask.


End file.
